Chen's a good middle-of-rotation fit for KC

The latest free-agent signing is LHP Bruce Chen, back with the Royals at least for 2014.
He signed for 1 year and $3.25 million, with a mutual option for $5.5 million in '15 with a $1-million buyout. There also are incentives built in. Chen said he signed with Kansas City, even though other teams (Rangers, for example) showed interest, because the Royals said he could pitch in their rotation.
This was not a bad signing. He's a known quantity, not just another one from the pile of question marks that were considered as possibilities for the last two spots in KC's rotation behind RHPs James Shields and Jeremy Guthrie and LHP Jason Vargas.
During the last four years, Chen has won 12, 12, 11 and 9 games -- with last season's drop-off only because he spent much of the season in the bullpen. In 15 starts, he was 6-4 with a 3.61 ERA. Consider him in the safe middle-of-the-rotation mold inhabited in recent years by Jeff Suppan, among others.
Some players were signed to 1-year contracts to avoid arbitration:
Tigers C Alex Avila, for $4.15 million, with a team option for 2015
Angels 3B David Freese, for $5.05 million
Angels RHP Kevin Jepsen, for $1.4625 million. Not sure what the extra 500 bucks are for.
And there were plenty of players signed to minor league contracts to extend the box scores for early exhibition games:
OF Roger Bernadina by the Reds
C Yorvit Torrealba, Angels
OF Reed Johnson, Marlins
1B Matt Clark, Mets. The former Padres farmhand hit 25 home runs for Japan's Chunichi Dragons last year. He's either the replacement for 1B Ike Davis, or just another pretender like Davis.
SS Alex Gonzalez, Orioles. This is the soon-to-be 37-year-old Alex Gonzalez who was an all-star with the 1999 Marlins and played (poorly) at first base for the Brewers last year.
RHP Daniel Bard, Rangers. He's recovering from surgery to correct thoracic outlet syndrome, an ailment that seems still to be waiting for a success story such as Tommy John's to give a name to the surgery. Bard joins a growing list of Texas pitchers who won't be ready when the season begins -- such as LHPs Derek Holland and Joseph Ortiz, who will miss at least the first month because of a broken right foot caused when a motorcycle ran over it in Venezuela.
There's more on the Orioles from the Baltimore Sun. They have purchased the contract of alleged 17-year-old 1B Carlos Diaz from the Mexico City Red Devils and signed "16-year-old" Dominican third baseman Jomar Reyes. Diaz was compared to DH/1B Kendrys Morales, and Reyes to Clete Boyer, for those old enough to remember the Yankees third baseman from the 1950s and '60s. Baltimore's signees are expected to play this season in the Rookie Class Gulf Coast League, so you don't have to look for them as fantasy prospects for several years, if ever.
The Sun also reported that 3B/1B Wilson Betemit has signed a minor league contract with the Rays, and RHP Jason Hammel has signed or will sign with the Cubs, who would put him in their rotation.
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Basketball. My lead is down to 6-1-1 through Friday. With only one big man active for me, my team fell behind in rebounds. Team Fresh Prints also dropped into a tie in assists, despite eight from Ricky Rubio and seven from Victor Oladipo. My one big man, Serge Ibaka, had such a big game that the Thunder didn't even need him in the fourth quarter at Brooklyn. Former President Bill Clinton saw at least some of Ibaka's 25 points on 12 for 12 shooting, and nine rebounds. I'll have a stronger lineup, especially up front, on Saturday, and hope to make up the lost ground and more.
I was at the Kings-Mavericks game, which in part was a battle between Rudy Gay's 35 points and 12 rebounds and Dirk Nowitzki's 34 points. But especially with DeMarcus Cousins injured for Sacramento, Nowitzki had a much better supporting cast. The supporting-actor nominees were Monta Ellis and Brandan Wright.
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Hockey. The four forwards active for my team combined for no goals, assists or penalty minutes, and were minus-4. Thomas Vanek was the star because he was neither plus nor minus and put four shots on goal. The wonder was that my team didn't lose any points. It did, however, drop 9 1/2 points behind the second-place team, which gained a point. I'll also have more hockey lineup slots  filled Saturday.

How successful was Holland's surgery?

Even the Yankees' signing of Masahiro Tanaka, the backlog of free-agent pitchers hasn't been reduced.
There's still not much going on in baseball. I did hear that Rangers LHP Derek Holland, on crutches, said the microfracture surgery on his knee wasn't as bad as what RHP Scott Feldman had when he was Holland's teammate. Feldman missed most of the season after his surgery, but has bounced back with other teams.
How Holland would know that isn't clear. In any event, it sounds like wishful thinking. You know, like how every player's surgery is deemed "successful" on the day it's performed. Who's going to remember that two years later when the guy has pitched 12 innings and can sign only a minor league contract with a non-contender?
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Hockey. Saturday night was good.
I saw the best game, with the best crowd, that I've seen in the eight seasons I've been going to Stars game. Dallas stayed hot, defeating the Penguins 3-0 before the second sold-out house this hockey season at the American Airlines Center.
My fantasy team picked up 2 1/2 points, 2 in plus/minus (despite a combined minus-4 for my two Colorado defensemen) and 1/2 in power-play points. So I'm up to 66 1/2, but still third among 10 teams.
I have to do a better job checking out matchups. Philadelphia's Steve Mason was in goal against the Bruins, who all but skated on his face in a 6-1 victory. My goalies are down to 5 points in wins, with three teams below them within three wins. Of course, I'm already at the bottom of the league in GAA and save percentage. It could get worse.
I've set my team up for Monday so that the Avalanche players on my roster won't be in my lineup on the road against the suddenly red-hot Stars. We'll see how that works.
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Basketball. I've made some lineup moves for Sunday, the last day in this week's competition. I'm ahead by about a 2:1 ratio in all six counting categories, but have slim leads in both field goal and free throw percentage.
I'd like to preserve that 8-0 lead, so I've benched the active players, Victor Oladipo and Mo Williams,  with the poorest shooting percentages. My opponent still might overtake me. Among the players in his lineup are Dirk Nowitzki, Manu Ginobili and David Lee. I'll get to see Dirk against the Pistons. I wouldn't wish ill on him, but if he has a cold night, so be it.
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Football. Does anyone know who's even playing the Pro Bowl Sunday? Somewhere, I'm sure, bookmakers have set a line for the game? exhibition? farce? And somewhere, someone will bet on it.

Will McCann turn out better than Martin for Yankees?

The big baseball news is the same item, but in two or three different ways. 1) The Yankees signed C Brian McCann to a 5-year, $85-million contract. 2) The news was not broken by one of the horde of writers on the Yankees beat, but by the Dallas Morning News' estimable Evan Grant. No doubt his source was close to the Rangers, who lost out in the bidding. We could have seen that coming, because talk in Texas was about McCann as a DH/backup to C Geovany Soto. 3) The last time the Yankees signed a free-agent catcher, Russell Martin, that didn't work out well for New York. But when Martin then signed with Pittsburgh, he received a lot of credit for his work with a young pitching staff and helping the team to its first playoff berth -- first winning season, even -- in 21 years. That leads to the question of whether Yankees manager Joe Girardi, a former catcher valued for his defense, isn't a good judge of his younger counterparts, or is too demanding of them -- as Angels manager Mike Scioscia might have been with Mike Napoli -- or perhaps there was conflict between Girardi and Martin. (Just googled Girardi Martin; it the only apparent possibility above was the "too demanding" part, but more likely misplaced relative frugality played a bigger role. Still, it's difficult to believe New York couldn't afford $15 million over 2 years for Martin.) Anyway, the Yankees never seem to have a shortage of DHs (unless their third baseman isn't let off the hook), so we can expect McCann to catch a lot.
Received a text from Michael -- a Cardinals fan, but a friend anyway -- about how St. Louis will be even stronger this year. Before he told me about the reported imminent signing of SS Jhonny Peralta, I replied that their infield could be a concern. I was thinking in terms of losing David Freese's bat, and shifting Matt Carpenter's shaky defense to third base. Peralta is by no means a defensive upgrade It's a good thing the Cards won't have a lot of lefties giving up ground-ball singles through the left side of that infield. Peralta does make their lineup even more formidable. But for an example of how important defense is in the postseason, we can look past the Cardinals to the Tigers' recent history.
Another reported signing would have the Angels continuing to retool their bullpen by signing RHP Joe Smith. He's a useful piece and an improvement. But 3 years and $15 million for just another guy named Joe Smith?
The Rangers quietly resigned RHP Colby Lewis to a minor league contract. He hasn't pitched in a year and a half because of a succession of injuries. I saw some of his rehab starts last year and can't report a lot more than he looked quite a bit better than RHP Brandon Webb in his tragically ill-fated comeback attempt. Lewis was a valuable part of the team's rise to contender status, and an easy guy to root for. However, after coming into the off-season talking about LHP David Price, Texas will need more than a successful return by Lewis in the middle or bottom of its rotation.

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Basketball -- My full-court press with 9 of the 10 positions in my lineup filled Saturday worked well. They combined for enough assists, led by Ricky Rubio's 8, to move me from 6 behind to 6 ahead. That meant that I'm now ahead in all eight categories. Just two players from my Saturday lineup are playing again today, but I've moved up all three players from my bench.
Tuned in the Mavericks-Nuggets game on my TV in time to see Dallas complete a comeback from being 12 down at the end of three quarters, then lose that lead and end up with a 102-100 loss as Dirk Nowitzki's 20-footer at the buzzer went off the iron. Samuel Dalembert, one of my fantasy centers, didn't miss a shot from the field in his two weekend games. Unfortunately, he had no official attempts Saturday.

* * *

Hockey Night in My House was a good one. All but one of my 15 spots for skaters was filled, and they reversed the current trend by finishing the night plus-4. They also averaged enough minutes to pull me past the former third-place team in ATOI. Even better, both of the goalies in my lineup won their games, allowing me to pick up another half-point on the team I was pursuing. Even better, James Reimer and Steve Mason gave up a total of three goals. Their efforts added a point in wins, another for GAA and 2 for save percentage. In total, I gained 6 1/2 points and had an 8-point swing to move into third place with a 7 1/2-point cushion. Another night like that could put me close to second place. That's more than I can hope for, but steady progress over the next couple of weeks could get me there. It's still close in a number of categories; I could easily drop back a point or two in some of those.
On Sunday, none of my goalies will be playing. Just five of the skaters on my roster will be in action. I have all of them in my lineup. Even though three of them are from Ottawa and have hefty minus ratings this season, they're going against the struggling Hurricanes. But if some of them come up negative again, I'll be searching the waiver wire. You're on notice, Jason Spezza, Clarke MacArthur and Milan Michalek.
I did make one move this morning. With Francois Beauchemin on IR, I claimed free-agent D Jan Hejda. He's able to help primarily in ATOI (he averages more minutes than Beauchemin) and plus/minus (at plus-14 he would replace Beauchemin as my highest-rated player).
Important key in any daily fantasy league: Keep up with it.

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Football. I resist the urge to look at my lineup multiple times during the week. At most, I'll do that three times: 1) Monday night/Tuesday morning, when all the games are finished and waiver claims might be needed. 2) Thursday morning, to make sure I'm set with anyone who would be playing that night and pretty much to get my lineup in order (make waiver claims, make sure I'm covered for anyone on a bye week). 3) As late as possible Sunday morning, so I can have the latest updates on who's not playing or hurting. It makes no sense for me to look -- say, now at 7:20 a.m. -- when I might have to change things again in a few hours. Besides, I'm not always awake at this time.
Another important key: I have struggled during bye weeks over the last few years. I'm resolving to avoid any player during the week when six teams are on a bye. I'd make an exception for someone like Peyton Manning or Calvin Johnson, but if you have to replace three or four players from your bench or among available free agents, you're almost certain to be in trouble.

Simple plus/minus system for fantasy basketball

When I was inspired -- pretty much impulsively -- to join a fantasy basketball league, I wondered whether the plus/minus system I use as a rough guideline who's playing well would work to evaluate players for fantasy basketball. The thinking was that we know who are the scorers, but when we're trying to accumulate a mashup of statistics for a Rotisserie (R)-style scoring system, the choices aren't so obvious. By looking at a typical expanded box score for a game -- or a season to date -- we can come up with numerical plus/minus figures for any player. That number shows whether players do more good or bad things for their team. Take the positive -- shots made, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks -- and deduct the negative -- missed shots, turnovers and fouls. For this study, I took the top group of five or six players in the positive stats -- scoring, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. That provides somewhat of a cross section of player types -- shooters, point guards, rebounders, defenders. In all, I compared the totals for 25 of those category leaders, some in more than one category, and one mistake (Mason Plumlee, whose numbers through Nov. 19 I looked up instead of Miles Plumlee's). I think this plus-minus assessment is a reasonable guideline. It includes just 26 of the 450 players on NBA rosters (6%), but if you consider that maybe nine players from each team could even be considered for fantasy purposes, that's more like 10%. The players in the study that we'd expect to be early fantasy draft picks are on top of this list. Keep in mind that these aren't the top 25 or 26 players in the league. Some acknowledged stars, such as Chris Bosh and Dirk Nowitzki, weren's included in the study. Here's the list: Kevin Love, Minnesota 220 Chris Paul, LA Clippers 199 Anthony Davis, New Orleans 181 LeBron James, Miami 164 Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City 162 Dwight Howard, Houston 152 Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, LA Clippers 147 Nikola Vucevic, Orlando 140 Andre Drummond, Detroit 133 Ty Lawson, Denver 125 Ricky Rubio, Minnesota 122 Roy Hibbert, Indiana 114 James Harden, Houston 112 John Wall, Washington 104 Jeff Teague, Atlanta 101 Evan Turner, Philadelphia 95 Stephen Curry, Golden State, and Brook Lopez, Brooklyn 91 Carmelo Anthony, New York 83 Dwyane Wade, Miami, and Miles Plumlee, Phoenix 72 Eric Gordon, New Orleans 59 Trevor Ariza, Washington 41 Deron Williams, Brooklyn 30 Mason Plumlee, Brooklyn 19 A couple of notes here. Unless you have a specific need in a category, it's best to avoid players whose value is mostly in one area, such as assists of blocks. That would be like having Juan Pierre on your fantasy baseball team and expecting him to hit for power. Subtracting missed field goals and missed free throws can point out where a scorer or some other specialist can help you in the shooting percentage categories. Examples: Anthony is -33 and point guards Wall -44 and Rubio -30 on field goals; big man Drummond is -11 at the foul line. Of Durant's +162 total, 98 are from his free throw margin. That also shows that he gets to the line a lot. James is +39 from the field, which tells me that he could be a little less selective and still score more points.

Some NBA stuff

And speaking of stuff, that's what Serge Ibaka did with Mavericks shots tonight.
I helped cover the Oklahoma City-Dallas game tonight for The Associated Press, and the Thunder's Ibaka had an unusual double-double of 11 rebounds -- and 10 blocks!
Like his teammates, the Congolese big man didn't even start playing defense until the second quarter. OK City allowed just 57 points over the final three periods in its 95-86 victory.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
It got to the point where it appeared that Ibaka had posted a "No trespassing" sign at the foul line. So while the Thunder were (AP style)/was (grammatical) scoring 42 points in the paint against Dallas's Brendan Haywood-less defense, the Mavs were mostly bombing away from long range. And missing.
Dirk Nowitzki -- roughed up by the Thunder's defense, primarily Kendrick Perkins, and playing on a bad knee -- made just 2 of 15 field goal attempts.
As a center, Ibaka is far more Russell than Chamberlain, but don't you dare ever say I compared him favorably to either of those literal and figurative giants. However, while Ibaka would score very few points for your fantasy basketball team, he was already a giant in the blocked-shots category. He ranked third in the league before his double-digit night.
It might be that the Mavericks just suck inside, or it might be that I've seen some of the NBA's better defensive centers recently. The Suns' also impressed me when I saw him against Dallas. Gortat even can contribute offensively, so there's another low-profile guy to consider for an NbA fantasy team.
On the other hand, you might want to reconsider a number of your Mavericks picks. Tonight especially, they looked old and slow. Shawn Marion went limping out of the American Airlines Center after the game. He almost qualifies as young on a team that most resembles the 2005 All-Star team.
The lone exception could be Jason Terry, who never saw a shot he didn't like and still can make them.
True, the Mavs were playing without Haywood, who helped bring a defensive presence in the middle for a team that had lacked one seemingly forever. Without him, Oklahoma City resembled the Warriors who ran at will through the middle of Dallas' defense in the 2007-08 playoffs. Kevin Durant and especially Russell Westbrook played the roles of Steven Jackson et al. tonight.
OK, so Lamar Odom didn't play. (He's not getting any younger either.) And Jason Kidd, who might begin collecting his pension the day after he retires.
A last basketball note: The Thunder is/are for real.
My original intention for this post was to remind baseball fans, if you didn't already know or remember, why Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 are two of the best dates on the calendar. I decided while driving home that I can hold that topic for a day or so.